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Drink

Koumiss

A fermented milk drink made by adding sugar, yeast, and flour to milk and allowing it to ferment for 24–48 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Koumiss

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a little water over heat.

  2. Fill a quart champagne bottle with pure milk up to the neck.

  3. Add the dissolved sugar, yeast, and a little flour to the milk.

  4. Stir the mixture to aerate and prevent it from turning acid.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Allow fermentation for 24 to 48 hours.

  2. Pour into bottles, cork, and wire them.

  3. Store in a cool place, not above 50°F (10°C).

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pure milk
Provides the base liquid and the sugars that yeast ferments into the drink.
White sugar
Feeds the yeast, driving fermentation and producing carbonation and alcohol.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, creating the effervescence and sharp flavour of the finished drink.
Flour
Supplies extra starch and nutrients that help the yeast get started.

The step that matters

Store in a cool place, not above 50°F (10°C). Fermentation continues in the sealed bottles, and warmth speeds it up until pressure builds too fast and bottles can burst. Keeping it cool slows the yeast and keeps the drink controlled.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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